Posts from ‘May, 2008’

An investigation of oil trading by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission will likely target evidence that traders intended to manipulate markets rather than just schemed to make money, former officials of the agency said.

PARIS, May 31 (Reuters) - Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, said he had warned BP about the risks of setting up a venture with a group of Russian billionaires when he blessed its creation as Russian president in 2003.

The proposed "fat cat tax" has provoked anguished protests from large Dutch companies, who say that it will ruin their ability to compete on the European, and international, market. Some companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, have warned that they might move their headquarters to another country.

HSBC's stormy annual meeting is the latest high water mark in the tide of shareholder discontent. Add it to the experiences of Royal Dutch Shell, BP and GlaxoSmithKline over recent weeks and the message is clear: investors are fed up with being seen as weak. The French government is threatening to curb "perfectly scandalous" pay packets for executives in underperforming companies, while the Dutch want to tax executive bonuses and severance packages.

Last year was another fabulous year for Exxon Mobil. It made a record $40.6 billion in profits. It replaced its reserves, no easy task with oil so hard to find and extract these days. Its safety record was stellar. Its return on capital was an astounding 32 percent, another record. It spent $21 billion in capital investments while also paying out $36 billion on a combination of dividends and stock buy backs. It share price rose 22 percent.

In 2006,Royal Dutch Shell was pressured into selling a controlling stake in its $20 billion Sakhalin-2 oil project to Gazprom at a below-market price after environmental regulators threatened it with billions of dollars in fines.

All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and poor alike. For the lucky ones, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle. But those most vulnerable to the price of oil have been driven on to the streets in angry protests, which raise a fundamental question: what can we do to survive in a world where a barrel of oil costs $127 (£64)?

The Kremlins campaign against foreign ownership of Russian energy resources forced Shell to cede control of the $20 billion (£10 billion) Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project to Gazprom last year. As the only big energy company not under Russian control, TNK-BP is firmly in its sights.

Yesterday shares in Arrow Energy, Australia's number four producer of coal-seam gas, were still halted as it worked on an agreement to sell an interest in its projects. Shell was rumoured to be the likely partner.

May 30, 2008: 4:41 PM EDTSANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- The Dominican Republic has bought out Royal Dutch Shell PLC's share of a jointly owned oil refinery in a bid to stabilize fuel prices, the government said Friday.

Mounting state pressure on the firm, including the arrest of an employee on an industrial espionage charge, a raid on its Moscow offices and a court injunction to stop it using BP specialists, are signs the time to sell is approaching, analysts say.

Editor's note: this is a statement given to Chevron's annual shareholders' meeting by Larry Bowoto, a lead plaintiff in Bowoto v. Chevron, which will come to trial in federal court in San Francisco in September. See here for background.

Shell would use the link to transport crude from the Kashagan field in Kazakhstan, the Cyprus-based weekly newsletter said, without saying where it got the information. Shell and Eni are major shareholders in the Kashagan development, due to come on stream in 2012 or 2013, according to MEE

May 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S.Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the watchdog for commodity transactions, is investigating U.S. crude oil trading to determine whether the surge to record prices is the result of manipulation or fraud.

``The law states that that money belongs to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation,'' Yar'Adua said, adding that he had found out that the oil firms had reached agreements with previous governments that exempted them from paying tax in breach of the law.

The complaint calls for immediate action by the company to redress the social and environmental harms caused to the community and to the local environment by the refinery at the Polo Petroquímico Dock Sud during decades of abuse and irresponsible corporate behavior.

The move Thursday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, including its unusual announcement of an investigation in progress, comes after crude-oil prices topped $130 a barrel last week and tested all-time highs.

Despite an urgent need to replenish reserves, Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF said they wouldn't sign a $10 billion contract to enter South Pars, the Iranian side of a giant natural-gas field shared with Qatar. Instead, the two oil giants are considering entering later phases of the project.

In 2006, Shell sold control of a major project in Russia to Gazprom after Russian environmental regulators threatened to shut it down. The regulatory problems, which were widely seen as a pressure tactic by the Kremlin, cleared up within weeks after Gazprom took over.

Crucial talks between BP and its Russian partners in TNK-BP, the Russian oil venture, broke down as the Russian billionaire shareholders failed to attend a scheduled board meeting in Cyprus amid a stand-off for control of the company, two people familiar with the situation said.

Groups that had expressed an interest in the Gladstone project included Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips of the US, Eni of Italy, Repsol of Spain, andSempra, owner of the largest US natural gas utility.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. regulatory probe into potential oil-market trading abuses is focusing on possible short-term manipulation of benchmark crude prices and the use of information related to important oil storage tanks to influence prices, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

America's leading commodities regulator has launched an unprecedented investigation into possible market manipulation in the US crude oil market amid record prices which continue to cripple various parts of the global economy.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) yesterday warned that, it would mobilise the 15,000 workforce in the oil and gas industry for a prolonged mass action against Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) if it should go ahead with its plan to sack 2000 of its 7000 workers.

Shell Oil Co., which made pesticides and other chemicals at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, will provide $21 million in cash and land under an agreement announced Thursday to settle a 25-year-old state lawsuit. The Army and the federal government are providing the rest.

Shell Oil and the U.S. Army  which produced all manner of nasty chemicals from 1942 until 1982 at the arsenal, northeast of downtown Denver  have agreed to pay the state $35 million in damages for polluting groundwater at the arsenal, state Attorney General John Suthers said today.

Shell Oil Co. and the federal government have agreed to a $35 million payout to settle the state of Colorado's quarter-century-old lawsuit over pollution at the Army's former Rocky Mountain Arsenal on the outskirts of Denver.

Okah may be in prison, but the organization he leads, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) continues to wreak havoc on international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta, sabotaging facilities and kidnapping personnel. And that limits Nigeria's output, and keeps global oil prices climbing.

Those with long memories will recall that in December 2006, Gazprom secured a majority stake in the Sakhalin-2 Russian oil and gas field formerly led by Royal Dutch Shell; at the time, Medvedev was chairman of Gazprom's board of directors. Sakhalin-2 contains estimated reserves of 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 500 billion cubic meters of natural gas; the "friendly" buyout left Royal Dutch Shell with a 27.5-percent stake.

To achieve its success, ExxonMobil has been forced to do business with a less-than-hospitable Russian government, which has strong-armed Royal Dutch Shell and BP. It must also contend with Venezuelan wild man Hugo Chavez, who last year helped himself to the assets of half a dozen big oil companies. So Exxon's core business clearly involves something more than casually nibbling on bon-bons.

I take special pride in mentioning that Motiva - our joint venture with Shell here in the U.S. - broke ground in December 2007 on a $7 billion project to expand its refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. Upon completion in 2010, this investment will provide 325,000 barrels per day of additional gasoline and other petroleum products to U.S. domestic markets. The expansion will increase the refinery's crude throughput capacity to 600,000 barrels per day, making it the largest U.S. refinery. In addition, the project is expected to generate over 4,500 construction jobs and as many as 300 new permanent jobs upon completion.

The tough enforcement climate that European companies now face is nothing new in the US. It has been 30 years since its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act made the payment of foreign bribes illegal (compared with less than nine for Europe). To be sure, more than a few global companies headquartered in Europe maintain sophisticated processes to support compliance, often as a result of past regulatory disputes. Akzo-Nobel and Shell are two examples.

Gasoline prices are through the roof and Americans are angry. Someone must be to blame and the obvious villain is "Big Oil" with its alleged ability to gouge consumers and achieve unconscionable, "windfall" profits. Congress is in a vile mood, and has dragged oil industry executives before its committees for show trials, issuing predictable threats of punishment, e.g. a "windfall profits tax." But if there is a villain in all of this, it is Congress itself.

Shell recently highlighted problems in the sector when it pulled out of what was designed as the worlds biggest offshore wind farm  the London Array in the Thames estuary. The company said it could get more value by investing in onshore wind farms in the US, where the wind market is growing rapidly after a slow start compared with Europe.

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Kremlin Asks Interpol To Help Find Alleged CIA Mole13 Sep 2019 15:28Daily CallerRussia’s foreign ministry on Thursday asked Interpol, the international policing agency, for help to find a Russian government official rumored to be a CIA mole. The Russian government issued the request regarding Oleg Smolenkov, a mid-tier Kremlin …

Kremlin Downplays Role Of Former Official Rumored To Be CIA Mole11 Sep 2019 03:05Daily CallerThe Kremlin’s top spokesman confirmed Tuesday that a man rumored in the Russian press to be a longtime CIA asset worked in the Russian government, but in a low-level position. Dmitry Peskov fielded inquiries about Oleg Smolenkov, who Russian media outlets …

Why Shares of Royal Dutch Shell Fell More Than 10% in August05 Sep 2019 03:29The Motley FoolWhat happened
Shares of Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS-A)(NYSE:RDS-B) fell more than 10% in August, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Shell has two classes of American depositary receipts (ADR) shares that trade on the New York …

New York Times drops sponsorship of oil conference03 Sep 2019 05:39The GuardianThe New York Times has scrapped plans to sponsor one of the world’s biggest oil industry conferences after pressure from climate campaigners including Extinction Rebellion.
There were protests outside the newspaper’s offices in Manhattan this month over …

The Most Amazing Quote From BP's Q2 Earnings Call15 Aug 2019 00:42The Motley FoolWhen you think of big oil companies like BP (NYSE:BP) or ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM), you might think about their service stations. Or you might think about their large refineries, or their oil wells, both on- and offshore. What you probably don't think …

500 EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS CITING OUR WEBSITES

See our link list of 477 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission websiteetc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of 64 books also containing references to our websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website ownerHead-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

DISCLAIMER

This is not a Shell website, nor is it officially endorsed by or affiliated with Royal Dutch Shell.
There are no subscription charges nor do we solicit or accept donations.

SHELL PRELUDE TO DISASTER

The links below are to a series of articles, many triggered by a well-placed whistleblower directly involved in the pioneering Royal Dutch Shell Prelude project. Includes articles by Mr Bill Campbell above, the retired distinguished HSE Group Auditor of Shell International and another retired Shell guru with a track record of spotting potential pitfalls in major Shell projects.

NAZI NAMED SHIP HIRED BY SHELL

The campaign waged on this website by John Donovan to persuade Edward Heerema to rename the worlds biggest ship, The Pieter Schelte - which he named after his late father, Pieter Schelte Heerema, a former Officer in the German Waffen-SS - has been successful. On Friday 6 February 2015, Allseas announced that it was changing the ships name, and on 9 February announced the new name - Pioneering Spirit.

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL EMPLOYEE DATA BREACH

GLOBAL NEWS COVERAGE: FEBRUARY 2010
MORE INFORMATION: Contact details for over 176,000 employees and contractors of Royal Dutch Shell reached John Donovan and some environmental and human rights groups, ostensibly from disaffected Shell staff calling for a “peaceful corporate revolution” at the company. The database, from Shell’s internal directory, contained names and telephone numbers for all the company’s work force worldwide, including some home numbers. It was supplied with a 170­ page covering note, explaining that it was being circulated by “116 concerned employees of Shell dispersed throughout the USA, the UK, and the Netherlands”, to highlight the harm done by the company’s operations in Nigeria. John Donovan brought the leak to the attention of Shell. Tests proved that the data was authentic and he destroyed the database after being informed by Mr. Richard Wiseman, the then Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, that the confidential information if publicly disclosed, could put Shell employees and contractors in real danger.

SHELL’S ROLE IN NIGERIAN OPL 245 BRIBERY SCANDAL

Whatever fig leaves they might be trying to use to hide the truth, Shell and Eni paid over $1bn to a company called Malabu for the OPL 245 licence. Even though the payment was channelled through the Nigerian government, it was clear that Shell knew that the ultimate beneficiary was Dan Etete, the former minister of petroleum. Etete is the owner of Malabu, to whom he awarded the licence when he was Nigerian Minister of Petroleum.

SHELL PERSECUTION OF DR JOHN HUONG

SHELL SAKHALIN2 DEBACLE

NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL

Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.

MORE INFORMATION
Shell appeased and collaborated with the Nazis. The oil giant instructed its employees in the Netherlands to complete a form giving particulars about their descent, which for some, amounted to a self-declared death warrant. Shell used slave labor and was a close business partner in Germany of I.G. Farben, the notorious Nazi run chemical giant that also used slave labor and supplied the Zyklon-B gas used during the Holocaust to exterminate millions of people, including children. Shell continued the partnership with the Nazis in the years after the retirement of Sir Henri and even after his death. It was money generated on Shell forecourts around the world, profiteering from cartel oil prices, that funded the Nazi party and saved it from financial collapse. Evidence about Shell's Nazi connections can be found in extracts from "A History of Royal Dutch Shell" Volumes 1 and 2 authored by historians paid by Shell, who had unrestricted access to Shell archives. There are 67 pages in total, so takes some time to download.

Photograph (full size here) shows a Swastika flag flying at the head office of Royal Dutch Petroleum, 30 Carel van Bylandtlaan, The Hague, during the Nazi occupation of the in World War II (From Image Database Hague Municipal)

Sir Henri Deterding, the founder of the Royal Dutch Shell Group - known as "The Most Powerful Man in the World" - who became an ardent Nazi and financial supporter of Hitler and the Nazi party.

SHELL ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS

SHELL IP PIRACY

Reading between the lines in various legal documents, it seems that the allegations are that after the technology in question had been disclosed to a Shell company in the USA, the information was passed to Shell in the Netherlands in breach of confidentiality. And Royal Dutch Shell subsequently exploited the technology without payment or credit to the company holding the rights; Newton Research Partners. The inference seems to be that Twister B.V. was founded by Shell partly on trade secrets stolen from Bloom/Newton.

WEBSITE INFORMATION

DISCLAIMER: This is not a Shell website nor is it officially endorsed by or affiliated with Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Originally co-founded by the late Alfred Donovan and his son John, it is now operated by John, Shell's "No.1 Enemy", aided by an expert team, with invaluable support from retired Shell senior executives and officials as guest contributors and leaked information from Shell insiders.(JOHN DONOVAN, WEBSITE OWNER)For nearly a decade, we have operated globally under the Royal Dutch Shell Plc top level domain name, dealing on Shell’s reluctant behalf with job applications, business proposals, Shell pension enquiries, shareholder enquiries, complaints, invitations to speak at conferences, an approach from the Dutch Defence Ministry and even terrorist threats. All meant for Shell. Prospect magazine has aptly described this website as being:"An open wound for Shell":WIPO proceedings by Shell to seize the domain name failed.NO SUBSCRIPTION CHARGES: All of our watchdog activities monitoring Royal Dutch Shell, including operating this website, are carried out on a non-profit basis. Any advertising revenues generated are used to recover and/or defray operational costs. We are a news aggregator and original content website. All information is available free for educational and research purposes. SHELL TACIT ENDORSEMENT: WHAT A WELL INFORMED SHELL OFFICIAL SAID ABOUT US:
"John and Alfred Donovan well known in UK/Hague. They perceive Shell played them and so have made it their mission to embarrass,belittle and criticize Shell, which they do quite well. Their website, royaldutchshellplc.com is an excellent source of group news and comment and I recommend it far above what our own group internal comms puts out."
WARNING TO SHELL EMPLOYEES: Shell Global Affairs Security "CAS") is spying on Shell employees globally trying to trace who is visiting, posting, or leaking information to this website from Shell premises. Threats, including death threats, have allegedly been made against conscience driven Shell whistleblowers supplying us with information. The worlds biggest leak of employee details as part of a claimed corporate revolution by 116 Shell employees, suggest the espionage operation, threats and draconian litigation have not been entirely successful in cutting off the supply of information to this website. The insider leaks had already cost Shell billions on the Sakhalin Energy project and the loss of SEIC Deputy Chairman, David Greer.We publish our own carefully researched articles about Shell e.g. "How Royal Dutch Shell saved Hitler and the Nazi Party".MEDIA COVERAGE: Prospect Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Guardian, have all published major articles about us: "Rise of the Gripe Site";"Two men and a website mount vendetta against Shell' and "92-year-old's website leaves oil giant Shell-shocked”. SHELL PETROL STATION images displayed in the website header panel are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Information on copyright issues here.
John Donovan can be contacted at [email protected]

SHELL’S $500,000 WEDDING GIFT TO CORRUPT BRUNEI ROYAL FAMILY

EXTRACT FROM ASIAN JOURNAL ARTICLE IN LIST OF LINKS BELOW: "Fireworks will light up the sky for three nights. The local unit of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has donated 500,000 Brunei dollars (US$292,400; euro 243,700) for the display, and for cultural events to be hosted by popular performers from Malaysia."

BILL CAMPBELL WHISTLEBLOWER EMAIL TO MP’S

IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS:

THIS IS WHAT IT SAID:

Subject: This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.

Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.

My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.

As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms. In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a "Touch F*** All" policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.

I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems which had been uncovered.

When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.

Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.

Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell's North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).

Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record - the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.

I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.

My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.

However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.

At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.

Yours sincerely
Bill Campbell

ENDS

(Malcolm Brinded and Jeroen van der Veer are no longer with Shell. The Oil Director referred to in the email is Chris Finlayson, who left Shell to become Chief Executive of British Gas before being fired - his photo immediately below)

SHELL RESERVES FRAUD

SIR PHILIP WATTS, THE GROUP CHAIRMAN OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL GROUP, FORCED TO RESIGN IN 2004

Shell’s reputation was destroyed in 2004 after FIVE consecutive cuts to its hydrocarbon reserves covering 55% of its total reserves. US and UK financial regulators imposed $150 million in fines on Shell for securities fraud. Shell was also rocked by class action lawsuits.Sir Philip Watts
and Walter van de Vijver (whose headcut images appear courtesy of The Wall Street Journal) were among the Shell executives forced to resign. More details at the foot of this column.
MORE DETAILS: The Shell reserves scandal brought about
the end of the Royal Dutch Shell Group in its original form as an Anglo-Dutch partnership.
Shell Transport & Trading Co and Royal Dutch Petroleum were unified into a single Dutch owned company - Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Sir Philip turned to religion and is now a very wealthy priest after receiving a payoff/pension package from Shell reportedly worth $18.5 million. Walter van de Vijver in contrast was the victim of a sadistic sacking by his Shell senior management backstabbing colleagues.

by John Donovan

Displayed below are some of the spectacular promotional campaigns my company Don Marketing created for Shell in the 1980s and 1990s. This was before the series of SIX high court actions we brought against Shell for stealing ideas (4) and for defamation (2) - all settled by Shell. This website is a permanent response by me to the malicious underhand tactics, including treachery, espionage and intimidation, used by Shell during and after the bouts of litigation. More information is printed at the foot of this column.
MORE DETAILS: After a solicitor acting for Shell threatened to make the litigation "drawn out and difficult" with the intention of draining the resources of a financially weaker opponent, my late father (Alfred Donovan) and I decided to mount a wide-ranging campaign as a counter-measure. We jointly founded the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, which nearly 15% of Shell UK retailers joined. We regularly conducted ethical surveys involving up to 1500 Shell petrol stations. All responses were opened and authenticated by an independent solicitor who supplied Affidavits confirming the results. In whole page announcements in trade magazines (examples above) we challenged Shell to commission and publish the resuits of independent research asking the same questions and offering respondents GUARANTEED anonymity. Shell never took up the invitation. Instead it asked the UK Advertising Standards Authority to investigate our Shell surveys. No problems were found. The head-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

SHELL CONTROVERSIES

selection of memorable warnings/articles/images associated with the controversial track record of Royal Dutch Shell.

WARNING: DO NOT DISCLOSE YOUR IDEAS TO SHELL GameChanger OR SHELL Ideas360 WITHOUT TAKING EVERY POSSIBLE PRECAUTION. Shell management has ample funds to pay for intellectual property but prefers to steal it from small businesses and in our experience, gives its full backing to dishonest managers willing to do its bidding. We have sued Shell repeatedly in the High Court for the theft of our Intellectual Property. It is doubtful if anyone can match our dire experience in dealing with this ruthless unscrupulous serial poacher of other parties ideas. Expect threats, legal machinations and sinister action from Shell and its spooks if you object to having your ideas stolen.

Some years ago extensive documentary evidence was brought to the attention of Malcolm Brinded above, when he was Chairman of Shell UK, proving beyond any doubt that Shell executives had conspired to rig a tender for a major contract. A number of innocent firms were deliberately lured into signing confidentiality agreements and disclosing Intellectual Property to Shell under false pretences, in a carefully contrived plot. The firm which was awarded the contract never took part in the tender. One objective of the Machiavellian plan was to stop/delay IP trade secrets owned by the participants in the tender from being disclosed to Shell's rivals. This was achieved by outright deception, without paying a cent to the firms involved, who wrongly believed they were participating in an honest tender. Instead of sacking the ring leader, AJL - who had a personal relationship with the firm which miraculously won the race in which it never ran - Shell senior directors, including Brinded, gave AJL their full backing. Some of the Shell executives involved, including for example, Tim Hannagan, still hold high positions inside Shell - in his case, Global Brand and Visual Identity Manager. If Shell does not accept that this is a true, provable account of what happened, then it should sue for libel. How on earth is such predatory conduct compatible with Shell's claimed business principles?